


The Choice of Freedom

by simply_aly



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 22:25:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simply_aly/pseuds/simply_aly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She tells herself she takes up Elena’s quest because she doesn’t know what else to do. </p>
<p>(Katherine looks for Stefan at the beginning of Season 3.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Choice of Freedom

There comes a moment when Katherine looks around and sees nobody. It isn’t that there isn’t a single person there, for she is among a crowd of people, but rather there is no one she cares for and no one who cares for her. She is alone.  
  
It is a sad thing, for Katherine had never been able to make the sort of connections she has always wished for until this very moment.  
  
She is free. Klaus had the chance to kill her yet she is still alive.  
  
It is exhilarating, or at least it should be, but there is something missing.  
  
She doesn’t cry (and honestly, she doesn’t quite believe she is capable of such an act anymore) but she wants to.  
  
-x-  
  
Elena and Damon visit her one weekend when she is in Miami. It is five months after the sacrifice.  
  
She is surprised by the visit, but she finds that it is not unwelcome either.  
  
She tells herself she takes up Elena’s quest because she doesn’t know what else to do. Elena’s weak and human and Damon would never let her near Klaus again if he can help it, so it is up to her. (And she has nothing to lose.)  
  
She thinks a part of her might still be searching for someone, and a part of her thinks she might find him if she saves Stefan.  
  
-x-  
  
She has come to realize she doesn’t love Stefan anymore. She loves the idea of Stefan, and she despises the fact that he has deluded himself into loving her copy when he’s so obviously still in love with her; but she doesn’t really love him.  
  
Katherine thinks it would be easier to love him (or Damon, for that matter) because she knows that which ever Salvatore she chose would try to make her happy.  
  
Katherine isn’t convinced she has the capacity to feel happy anymore, but she wishes for it all the same.  
  
-x-  
  
She follows the massacres across the globe and it takes her three years, but finally, she finds them.  
  
There’s a feeling in the pit of her stomach she assumes to be guilt when she sees the crazed look in Stefan’s eyes and the blood dripping down his chin. This is her fault, of that she is certain.  
  
Klaus grins when she steps into his line of sight. “Come, Katerina,” he beckons. “Join us.”  
  
The pretty blonde in the alley does nothing for her, but she joins in anyway for she has something to prove.  
  
-x-  
  
“I didn’t do it for you,” she tells Stefan before he leaves and it isn’t until he walks away for the last time that she realizes it’s true. This was her choice, one of the few she has made that she knows she’ll never regret.  
  
Klaus doesn’t let her give him a proper goodbye, but she does manage to tell Stefan to call Damon, that Damon will help him. It is strange that she is relieved to see that he isn’t so far gone that he realizes seeing Elena right away would not end well. It amazes her that she cares.  
  
Klaus’s grip on her arm tightens the moment Stefan is out the door. “For the first time,” he whispers cryptically, “we are alone, Katerina. What _should_ we do?”  
  
She knows, of course, but she chose this anyway.  
  
-x-  
  
Katherine finds that time passes easier now. No faster, no slower, but she doesn’t feel that weight of her past any longer.  
  
It is ironic that she still feels free while enslaved to the monster she had run from for over five hundred years.  
  
There is not time limit, no day to end her enslavement, but she finds that it doesn’t really matter.  
  
She isn’t alone anymore and she thinks that might mean something.


End file.
